President Trump ordered the restoration of a statue depicting former Confederate general Albert Pike in the Judiciary Square neighborhood of Washington, DC. In 2020, the statue was toppled by protesters and forthwith stored away in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the ensuing riots that took place nationwide.
“The restoration aligns with federal responsibilities under historic-preservation law and recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and restore pre-existing statues,” the National Park Service told Fox News.
The decision was based on a March executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which seeks to “take action to reinstate the pre-existing monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties, as appropriate and consistent with 43 U.S.C. 1451 et seq., 54 U.S.C. 100101 et seq., and other applicable law.”
Pike was involved with the Confederate army and eventually served as a brigadier general during the US Civil War. Regretful of his involvement, he resigned from the Confederate army in 1862 and recanted his prior view of the Constitution that prompted him to fight in the Civil War. For the rest of his life he resolved “to pursue the arts of peace, to practice my profession, to live among my books, and to labour to benefit my fellows and my race by other than political courses.”
US Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton is a critic of the restoration, calling it “morally objectionable.” The congresswoman has attempted to get the statue permanently removed several times.
“Pike himself served dishonorably. He took up arms against the United States, misappropriated funds, and was ultimately captured and imprisoned by his own troops,” Norton said. “He resigned in disgrace after committing a war crime and dishonoring even his own Confederate military service. Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts, not remain in parks or other locations that imply honor. Pike represents the worst of the Confederacy and has no claim to be memorialized in the Nation’s capital.”
Pike was a religious scholar and long-time Freemason. His statue was erected in 1901 by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in honor of his scholarship and role in Masonry. Congress approved the statue’s installation on the condition that Pike would be depicted as a civilian and not a soldier.
